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Monday, May 11, 2009

I thought I'd join John Newmark of Transylvanian Dutch in his Amanuensis Monday. I have been needing to transcribe the pension file of my 4th-great-grandfather, Levi Edward McLALLIN. The transcriptions will not be posted in date order, but by transcribing and then filing the documents, I hope to order the entire file. Any of my notations within this transcription are both italicized and in brackets. The following is the reverse (back) of the document of 20 January 1865.

[The above was covered with the following stamped text. There is a second stamp also, the only text I can make out being "...of the ...ter...10..."]Adjutant Generals' Office,Feb 9 1865Duplicate for the Pension Office[signed] Sam.l [illegible]Asst. Adjt. Genl

The company commander will here add a statement of all the facts known to him concerning the disease or wound, or cause of disability of the soldier; the time, place, manner, and all the circumstances under which the injury occurred, or disease originated or appeared; the duty, or service, or situation of the soldier at the time the injury was received or disease contracted, stating particularly whether the injury was received or the disease contracted in the line of his duty; and whether other facts may aid a judgment as to the cause, immediate or remote, of the disability, and the circumstances attending it.

When the facts are not known to the company commander, the certificate of any officer, or affidavit of other person having such knowledge, will be appended--as the surgeon in charge of a hospital, the officer commanding a detachment of recruits, &c., &c.

NOTE 2.

When a probable case for pension, special care must be taken to state the degree of disability-- as 1/2, 1/3, &c., &c.; to describe particularly the disability, wound, or disease the extent of which it deprives him of the use of any limb or faculty, or affects his health, strength, activity, constitution, or capacity to labor or earn his subsistence. The surgeon will add, from his knowledge of the facts and circumstances, and from the evidence in the case, his professional opinion of the cause or origin of the disability. In the case of discharges by Medical Inspectors, the last paragraph will state that the "discharge was given by consent of the soldier, after a personal examination, and for disability, the nature, degree, and origin of which are correctly described in the within certificate."

Par. 1260 Regulations, Edit. 1861.

Medical officers, in giving certificates of disability, are to take particular care in all cases that have not been under their charge; and especially in epilepsy, convulsions, chronic rheumatism, derangement of the urinary organs, ophthalmia, ulcers, or any obscure disease liable to be feigned or purposely produced; and in no case shall such certificate be given until after sufficient time and examination to detect any attempt at deception.

DIRECTIONS.

This certificate will be made out in duplicate by the soldier's company commander, or other officer commanding the separate detachment to which he belongs, and sent by him to the surgeon who has charge of the hospital where the soldier is sick. The surgeon will then fill out and sign the surgeon's certificate, and forward these papers to the regimental, detachment, or post commander, who will forward them, with his action endorsed thereon, through the proper channel, to his division commander; or, if the troops are not attached to a division, to his corps, department, or other commander or officer to whom the authority to discharge enlisted men may be specially delegated.

These certificates, after having received the action of the highest authority to which they are required to be sent, will be returned through the same channel to the regimental, post, or detachment commander, who will, if the discharge is authorized by the endorsement of the proper authority, sign the soldier's discharge, and the last certificate on this paper; see that the soldier is furnished with the proper final statements in duplicate, and forward BOTH of these certificates direct to the Adjutant General United States Army at Washington, D. C.; they will not, under any circumstances, be given into the hands of the soldier.

1 comment:

I love finding old pension applications for my ancestors! While there aren't many, there are enough that I'm still finding new ones from time to time, going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Pension applications can be treasure troves of information. My favorite one so far is for my great-great-great grandfather, Aaron Washington Mattox, who applied for a pension for his Confederate service in 1909. That application is 22 pages long, and has his service and medical information in it, as well as a few hand-written documents that he wrote describing in his own words why he felt he deserved a pension. It was a great find!